


Breathe (2AM)

by swanqueenfic13



Series: Aca-Song Fics [18]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Song fic, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 17:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8336221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanqueenfic13/pseuds/swanqueenfic13
Summary: A Chaubrey fic to Anna Nalick's beautiful song Breathe (2AM). My first time writing Chaubrey, so be gentle!





	

It’s two in the morning when my phone rings.

“Aubrey, I need your help,” the voice on the other end of the phone pleads when I answers. I should be used to this by now. I’ve always been the fixer, ever since I was a kid. When something went wrong, I knew just how to make it better. Maybe it was because I always needed things perfect. That’s what my mother always said, anyway. 

So, I reply, “I’ll be right over.”

 

Chloe is still in the dorm’s bathroom when I make my way over to Baker Hall. Thanking my lucky stars that the door attendant knows me, I rush up the stairs and into the third floor girl’s bathroom where Chloe had texted me she’d be. In just a year and a half, Chloe had become my best friend at Barden, my person. Maybe it was being in the Bellas with Alice. Maybe the trauma had bonded us. Maybe we were just meant to be friends. I don’t know. But when I see her curled up on the floor- we’ll have a chat about the germs later- I run over. 

Her red hair is slick with sweat and her face is stained with dried tears. I pull her closer and she sobs into my shoulder. I know not to ask yet. I just hold her, moving to the benches just outside the showers. Cradling her gently, I rock her back and forth.

“Breathe, Chloe,” I whisper softly, rubbing circles on her back. “Just breathe.” After a while, she calms down.

“I’m pregnant,” she admits.

“Tom’s?” I ask. She’d been dating him since freshman year, and they had just broken up last month, shortly after their first anniversary. She nods mutely.

“I don’t… I don’t love him, Bree,” she whimpers. “I can’t… I can’t keep it. Winter just… It’s really not my season, I guess.” And the laugh she lets out is so pitiful and sad, so broken and so very un-Chloe that I hold her tighter. Her laugh quickly becomes a sob and I’m hugging her close again. She’s gripping at me, clawing at my back like she’s drowning, and I let her. “I feel bad always asking you to… help me unravel my latest mistake,” she eventually hiccups. 

“Hey now,” I hush her. “None of that. It’s fine. It’s what best friends are here for,” I grin, holding her tighter. 

“I just wish I could go back… Or… something. Change things,” she laments.

“Well, as far as I know, no one’s found the rewind button for life,” I joke drily. Her lower lip starts to wobble again. “Let’s get you to bed, hmm?” I pull her to her feet, down the hall towards her dorm room. Somehow, she’d ended up in a single this year, which I’m grateful for as I pull her into the bed, not bothering to ask as I settled in, holding her close. We both know she needs this tonight.

“You’re so good to me, Aubrey,” she murmurs into my shoulder, eyes closed. She’s half asleep, but I still blush. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, nerd,” I tease. “Now, just breathe… And go to sleep. We’ll deal with things in the morning.”

 

Within a week, I’d helped Chloe find a reputable clinic to get rid of the pregnancy. They promised discretion, and accepted cash payment since Chloe really didn’t want this to show up on her parent’s medical insurance. I helped pay for it, and she promised a thousand times that she would pay me back, but I don’t care about that. I remind her that best friends are always there. 

“Thank you, Bree… For coming with me today,” Chloe whispers. Aubrey links arms, pulling her into the brick building. It bears no name besides the doctor’s, and Chloe is grateful for the clinic’s discretion. Once they make their way into the correct suite, Chloe pauses.

The moment we walked through the doors, heads turned our way. It was like a terrible movie. Everyone- women of all ages and races, some alone, some with others- looked us up and down, a sneer of disdain on their faces. I want to yell at them. I want to do something, but all I can do is squeeze Chloe’s hand and bring her to the receptionist’s desk. The young woman instructs us to take a seat and wait.

“Everyone’s staring,” Chloe exhales in my ear once we’re seated. And she’s right. They watch over their phones, their magazines, when they think we’re not looking. Chloe is easily the youngest person here, and I know that’s probably why they’re judging her. Or maybe it’s just because I’m the one holding her hand.

“Hypocrites,” I hiss back at her, just a little too loud to be considered a whisper. “Like they’re not here for the same reason you are. Who are they to judge?”

“Aubrey, Aubrey, shhh,” Chloe whispers. I huff, straightening up and glaring at anyone who dares to judge Chloe.

 

That night, I bring Chloe back to her off-campus apartment. She hasn’t stopped crying since we left the procedure room earlier that day. It had been a fight to get her to eat something and convince her to take a shower. Now, she was curled up in an old pair of my sweatpants in the middle of the bed, staring blankly at the wall. She was making these little dry sobbing sounds. 

“I-I can’t… Aubrey, what if this was… A mistake?” Chloe sobs. I wasn’t even completely dressed, leaving my pants on the floor before sprinting over to hold Chloe, pulling her closer.

“Hey now, hey, Chlo, relax. Breathe. Just breathe. Put your head in your hands and take a deep breath.” I urge Chloe into a sitting position on the side of the bed, leaning over with her head cradled in her hands.

“I just wish I could go back and… do it all over again,” she whimpers after a while. I just rub her back. “I wish I could have… I never would have had sex with Tom… I would have… I wish I could have…”

“Chloe, you know what my dad always says,” I interrupt.

“If you’re not here to win, get the hell out of Kuwait?” Chloe sniffles, unsure where this is going.

“No! Well, yes, but no,” I smile at her. “I meant… My dad always said that life is like… an hourglass glued to the table. We can’t go back. We can’t flip it over. It just… Time just flows in one direction and we can’t go back or anything. You just have to… accept that what’s happened has happened and move on, hmm?” She whimpers and her shoulders begin to shake. “I’m sorry, Chloe. Just… I’m so sorry.” I pull her onto my lap and rock her back and forth. She burrows her head into my shoulder and focuses on breathing.

 

“Chloe,” I whisper. She looks up at me, eyes bloodshot and bleary. “How long?” She bites her lip, fiddling with the cheap metal flask I’d found in her backpack moments ago.

“I haven’t been sober since… last October, maybe?” Sighing, I bury my head in my hands. How could I have missed this? I knew Chloe had been upset about Alice not giving her the solo she deserved, but spending four months in a drunken stupor? I’m her best friend. I should have noticed.

“You need to… You need to stop,” I beg. “You’re killing yourself in slow motion, Chlo, and I can’t… I can’t watch that happen. Please. Just… one day at a time?” Looking back, I could tell that Chloe’s been down for a while. But then, she’d smile at me, and my  _ God _ , it’s so beautiful when she smiles that I can forget she’d been sad.

“Just… Just a day?” she whispers, staring down at the flask in her hand. 

“One day at a time,” I remind her. She traps her lower lip between her teeth and puts the flask in my outstretched hand.

 

The next week, she’s in my room, begging me to help her.

“I can’t even make it one week, Aubrey. I need a drink. I need to… I need to keep calm. Please, just one?” She’s ready to fall on her knees, begging and pleading and it’s painful for me to watch her like this. I just want to hold her close, tell her everything will be alright.

“You can’t, Chlo. Because one drink turns to two and then three and before you know it, you’re stumbling around drunk all day again. This will pass, this feeling. Someday, you’ll look back and you’ll be so much stronger,” I promise her. She’s crying now, elbows on her knees and cradling her head in her hands. She takes big, heaving breaths to combat her broken sobs.

“When will it be s-someday?” she asks after a while, laughing slightly.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “All I know is… my dad always says that people are like… cars on a cable. We-”

“I thought we were hourglasses glued to a table,” Chloe smiles wryly. I chuckle.

“Well, he says that life is like that. But people, we’re like cars on a cable. We can’t skip the track, can’t jump ahead. We just have to keep on chugging along. And that’s what you’re going to do. And I’m going to help you, okay?” She nods, leaning into me as she cries.

“I l-love you, Aubrey. You’re my best friend.” I bite my lip, wishing she had just stopped after the first sentence. But she didn’t. So, I hold her close, rubbing circles on her back as she cries.

“I love you, too, Chlo. Just breathe, okay?” And slowly, she does.

 

It’s two in the morning again, and I can’t fall back asleep. 

It was my senior year, and it was supposed to be perfect. I’m co-captains with Chloe now, and we’re supposed to lead our new team to an ICCA victory, but we can’t. Because I screwed everything up and now no one will even think of auditioning for us. We’re laughingstocks of collegiate a capella, and Chloe has just been so patient, and so kind to me, and it hurts. It hurts because I do love her, and I can’t handle being close to her knowing she’ll never feel the same.

So, I’m sitting here with a bottle of Jack Daniels in my off-campus apartment at two in the morning, writing a song. I’d picked up the habit in high school from my therapist. He thought that maybe writing down my thoughts would help me process my feelings. I just wanted to get everything down on paper so that it’s no longer inside of me, making my skin crawl and threatening to kill me.

Once, Chloe asked to see what I was writing. This was before all of my songs were about her, but I still froze, still hesitated. Because letting other people read my songs felt like being naked in front of a crowd. The words I put on paper are… my diary, and to have her read them was like having it read aloud, and I knew she could take those words and do whatever she wanted with them. She could interpret them, and me, any way she wants to. I let her read them anyway because how could I say no to her?

I mumble the words as I write them. “ _ But you can’t jump the track… we’re like cars on a cable… And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table… No one can find… the rewind button girl… sing it if you understand… and breathe… Just breathe _ .” I take a deep breath, surprised to find my notebook stained with tears.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry... It just didn't feel like a happy ending song....


End file.
